It’s the ad which has gone viral and got everyone talking. Sydney Sweeney, the star of the moment, models denim for US brand American Eagle, with the campaign’s tagline, ‘Sydney Sweeney has great jeans’. So far, so fine. But it’s the 27-year-old actress talking about her ‘genes’ and ‘jeans’ that has sparked wild debate.

‘Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair colour, personality and even eye colour. My jeans are blue,’ says Sydney in the campaign. Online critics have weighed in on whether it’s just a harmless and fun play on words – ‘great genes’ versus ‘great jeans’ – or whether there’s a hidden meaning with perceived racial undertones, with some likening the commercial to ‘Nazi propaganda’. One TikTok user commented, ‘It is one of the loudest and most obvious racialised dog whistles we’ve seen and heard in a while,’ while another remarked, ‘When those traits are consistently uplifted as genetic excellence, we know where this leads.’ But others defended the star. ‘The hate is exhausting. Y’all are mad at Sydney Sweeney because she’s white, she’s blonde, she’s blue-eyed and she looks good. I am DEI’d out,’ one said.

Now singer Lizzo appears to have made a dig at Sydney, name-dropping the star in a new song. In the unreleased track I’m Goin In Till October, Lizzo rapped, ‘Fat a**, pretty face with the titties. B***h, I got good jeans like I’m Sydney.’ And in the accompanying video, the rap star wore a cropped denim jacket and denim hotpants, twerking as she washes and looks under the hood of a sports car – much like Sydney did in the American Eagle ad, though she was dressed in a white vest and jeans.

While Sydney – who’s rumoured to be launching a lingerie line backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his new wife Lauren Sanchez – has not publicly responded to the controversy, an insider reveals that she is brushing off all the backlash. ‘Sydney’s getting a ridiculous amount of hate right now and some of it is coming from major names. The Lizzo thing caught her off guard at first, but she’s shrugged it off and isn’t losing sleep. She’s not about to give anyone the satisfaction of seeing her rattled,’ the source says.

‘As far as the ad campaign goes, she has no regrets and can’t understand why people are being so critical and catty just for the sake of it. All she did was use a sexy voice and go along with a very harmless script when it was presented to her.’

It’s not the first time that Lizzo has thrown shade at Sydney over the AE campaign. Earlier this month, she posted her own satirical version of the ad, sharing a digitally altered meme of her wearing a denim shirt and jeans, much like Sydney wore in the highly criticised photo shoot, on her Instagram. ‘If the Democrats won the election,’ she captioned, adding, ‘My jeans are black…’

Doja Cat, Lizzo’s friend, also made fun of Sydney’s denim campaign. The rapper posted a TikTok video in which she recited the Euphoria star’s monologue from the ad in an exaggerated Southern accent.

American Eagle are, of course, standing by their woman. ‘“Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans” is and always was about the jeans,’ they said in a statement. ‘Her jeans. Her story. We’ll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way. Great jeans look good on everyone.’

The insider explains, ‘Sydney has the whole of Hollywood at her feet at the moment, especially now Jeff Bezos is backing her lingerie range, but she’s learning that the more successful she is the more of a target she’s become. She’s always been an extremely grounded, level-headed character but turning the other cheek can still be hard at times, even for her – the trolls are relentlessly cruel and there are endless weirdos constantly trying to slide into her DMs or give her a hard time over what she’s doing.’

In June, Sydney – who remains one of Hollywood’s most in-demand stars – sold her bathwater for Dr Squatch to infuse a ‘touch’ into their Sydney’s Bathwater Bliss soap bars, another money-making move which caused controversy. ‘It was the same situation with her bathwater commercial. The haters were out in force then as well but Sydney just rolled her eyes and let them get on with it,’ the insider says.

And rightly so. The limited-edition soap – only 5,000 of the $8 bars were made – sold out quickly but soon appeared on eBay at hugely inflated prices upwards of $1,000.

The source says Sydney is unfazed by the negative commentary going on around her, as she focuses on her own career, which includes branching out into music following her role as a country singer in new film Americana. Reports claim that Sydney has been working with a vocal coach to make her pop dreams a reality.

‘It’s no secret Kim Kardashian sees green around her, which does bother Sydney because she has no intention of bringing that out in other women. But she’s driven: if people want to hate on her because she’s doing well, so be it,’ they say.

‘She’s making moves toward a music career now and apparently that’s ruffled a lot of feathers as well, including Jennifer Lopez’s, which is wild to Sydney. She totally loves her and grew up listening to her music, so she’s pretty much blown away that she’d be seeing her as any sort of competition. It just proves to her that she’s on the right path and she’s not taking her foot off the break. Plenty of people in the industry are cool with her and supportive and in her view those that don’t like her, are none of her business.’

The insider adds, ‘What does bug her the most though is when she gets word of other celebrities saying mean things about her. It’s tempting to clap back and tell them to get a life, but she knows that by doing so she’s just feeding into their drama and essentially handing folks a guide about how best to get under her skin, what pushes her buttons in other ways. That’s the current strategy, along with sticking with the winners and ignoring negativity at all costs. And so far nobody in their right mind would deny she’s playing an absolute blinder!’